BVwG - W214 2235505-1
| BVwG - W214 2235505-1 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Court: | BVwG (Austria) |
| Jurisdiction: | Austria |
| Relevant Law: | Article 6(4) GDPR Artikel 8, 10 EMRK Artikel 8, 10 GrCH § 1 DSG § 48a BAO §§ 1-4 AuskunftspflichtG |
| Decided: | 28.07.2021 |
| Published: | |
| Parties: | Federal Administrative Court Austria |
| National Case Number/Name: | W214 2235505-1 |
| European Case Law Identifier: | ECLI:AT:BVWG:2021:W214.2235505.1.00 |
| Appeal from: | |
| Appeal to: | Not appealed |
| Original Language(s): | German |
| Original Source: | RIS (in German) |
| Initial Contributor: | n/a |
The Federal Administrative Court Austria (BVwG) granted a journalist access to information on financial aids issued by the Federal Ministry of Finance during to the COVID-19 pandemic. The extend of the access generally covers information on such aids for corporate entities but not those on individual entrepreneurs.
English Summary
Facts
The complainant, a journalist from Austria, requested information from the Federal Ministry of Finance in Austria on the names and sums of all companies that received aid in the form of tax deferrals, grants or loan guarantees during the COVID-19.
The authority rejected the complainants request, arguing that it cannot provide the requested information due to a statutory duty of confidentiality coming from data protection and related laws. Accordingly, the disclosure of the names of all companies including the concrete amounts of their respective CÓVID-19 support services would reveal too concrete and detailed information on the businesses earnings situation, profitability and competitiveness.
Dispute
Holding
The BVwG held that the ministry has to grant the journalist with access to information on the issued aids for corporate entities but not on those for individual entrepreneurs.
The court argued, that the complainant’s work as a journalist fulfils the social role of a "public watchdog" to prevent financial abuse during the exceptional and historical COVID-19 pandemic. In line with European principles, publications of aid beneficiaries are of great social interest and strengthens both control and contribution to the appropriate use of public funds. Moreover, the journalist is itself bound by the legal framework of his employer and conditions to protect companies affected by the reporting. The court therefore held that the authority has to provide the journalist with access to the information on the aids issued on corporate companies.
On the other hand, the court argued that as far as individual entrepreneurs are concerned, such information implies a more serious interference with the fundamental rights of the individual. In such situations, the data inferred a balance of interest favours the individual entrepreneurs according to both national data protection law (§ 1(2) DSG) as well as the GDPR (Article 6(4) GDPR). Information on the financial aids for individual entrepreneurs therefore may not be provided to the journalist. However, this does not apply where union law provides legal exceptions to these provisions, like it is the case for aids higher than €500,000€ (Article 9(1)(c) Regulation (EU) No 651/2014).
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English Machine Translation of the Decision
The decision below is a machine translation of the German original. Please refer to the German original for more details.
